


i am just a line without a hook

by nerdyscully (dalecooperscoffee)



Category: Arrested Development
Genre: Abusive Parents, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, also Gob's first breakdown around Tony, basically gob is treated like shit by his family, but what's new, that's a milestone right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-24 21:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14363703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dalecooperscoffee/pseuds/nerdyscully
Summary: Gob can't handle being mistreated by his family forever. But Tony is there to help him work through it and be more supportive than they ever could.





	i am just a line without a hook

**Author's Note:**

> i'm here, i'm queer, i'm in the arrested development tag again.
> 
> i'm not sure how i feel about this fic. i hope gob isn't OOC, the thing about gob is that he doesn't experience any emotion subtly, he's very all over the place (poor dude). that's why i love him, but he's also hard to write because of that. but i was in an angsty mood so i wanted to write some angst. don't worry though, it's all happy and gay in the end. :) enjoy!!
> 
> PS: the title is from the song "line without a hook" by ricky montgomery...his music is good

Gob was no stranger to crying. He cried a lot. He used to be embarrassed about it, and sometimes still was, but it was kind of just a fact. He cried when he was happy, and when he was sad, and when he was excited, and sometimes he cried when he was really frustrated about something. Michael had seen him cry a lot, and so had the rest of his family.

But Tony hadn’t seen him cry. Well, except the time where they watched that really cheesy romance movie where the main love interest died at the end. That got Gob a little teary. But that didn’t count, because he was pretty sure he saw Tony wiping his eyes, too.

But this was a different kind of crying. Gob wasn’t sure how long he had been laying on the couch with tears streaming down his face, but it had been awhile. His breath was short and shallow, and his eyes were so heavy and tired he didn’t know how he was keeping them open. This was the kind of crying that made you feel  _ hollow,  _ like you had lost something even if you weren’t sure what it was. He heard the door open and squeezed his eyes shut, somehow wishing that he could recover from this in the 5 seconds that it would take Tony to find him. 

“Gobie?” he heard him call. He felt a presence peer over the couch. “Gob…” Tony’s voice changed to something soft and tentative. “Gob, what happened?”

“It’s stupid,” he said, sitting up slowly. “I’m fine.”

“Well, that’s a lie,” Tony pursed his lips together, coming to sit where Gob was previously sprawled on the couch, now sitting up but still slumped over. “Gob, can you talk to me, please.” 

“It’s stupid,” he dismissed, avoiding eye contact with Tony. “It’s really stupid.”

“I’ve never seen you like this. You can’t just brush it off like nothing.”

But Gob was really good at breaking down and then brushing it off like nothing happened, hoping that everyone around him could forget that embarrassment. It was usually his family that saw him in a sobbing, snotty mess, and they were so used to it that their reaction to it was something like “oh, Gob’s crying again”. But Tony wasn’t like his family (thank God). 

Tony gently took his hand, silently coaxing Gob to look at him. “You don’t have to tell me everything...but do you wanna talk about it, at least a little?”

“God,” Gob laughed bitterly, “I don’t deserve this.” 

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t deserve for you to hold my hand and worry about me. All I do is cause trouble, don’t you know?” 

Tony was evidently worried--Gob was usually so full of confidence, so bombastic and unafraid. “Did someone say something to you?” Tony asked him. 

“I don’t know,” in reality, it wasn’t  _ one _ thing. It was never just one thing. “My dad is more disappointed in me than ever, and I didn’t know that was possible, my brother is too selfish and focused on completely destroying his relationship with his son to actually be happy for me for once. And then my mom wants to have a family dinner and asks Michael to bring his girlfriend but tells me not to bring you?” he wiped his eyes quickly. “I want to bring the one person who makes me fucking happy and they have to tear it all down.”

Gob felt Tony’s arms wrap around him, his warmth pressing against him. Tony knew Gob’s family was a mess, but Gob never really wanted to get into it most of the time. “I don’t think you deserve to be treated like that.”

“Maybe I do. I’ve never done anything that benefitted them in any way--why would they care about me? Me being with you is just another disappointment to them.”

“To be honest? They sound like they’re the fucked up ones, not you.” Tony said. “You don’t just cause trouble.”

“Most of the time, I do.”

“Hey, not to sound corny, but if you hadn’t have caused trouble, we would’ve never met,” he said, and Gob didn’t fight the smile that came to his face. “Is what you said true? Do I really make you happy?”

Gob nudged him a little. “Come on. Of course you do. Why do you think I’m always lying around your place?” Usually when Gob had a girlfriend, he didn’t like always being around them--he needed space. With Tony, things were so comfortable and natural that he felt like he had plenty of space and Tony was just sharing it with him. 

“You make me happy, too. You really do.” Tony said. 

Gob wasn’t sure how they went from two straight guys pretending to be gay for revenge purposes, to two guys with ambiguous sexualities who were genuinely in love. The time in between those two stages was a blur of forget me nows and a lot of excuses (“I’m not really gay, but I’ll do this to you if you do that to me”, “I’m not really gay but it’s great for publicity, so we might as well keep this going”). But they had gotten here, to a point where Gob could have a breakdown on Tony’s couch and be comforted. He wasn’t sure he had ever reached this stage with anyone else.

Gob laid his head in Tony’s lap, his tired eyes finally getting some relief as he closed them. “Are you gonna go to the dinner?” Tony asked, rubbing circles on Gob’s arm with his thumb.

“No. Maybe they’ll come around someday.” Lucille had always said that she didn’t necessarily  _ care _ that Gob was ‘a gay’, but he had his doubts. “But not now. I doubt anyone actually shows up anyway, except Michael and whatever girl he’s dating that he stole from his son.” He could tell Tony was trying not to laugh.

“For someone who wants to leave the family so much, he’s kind of bad at it, isn’t he?” he commented.

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” he threaded his fingers through Tony’s, who kissed his boyfriend’s hand. “I think I’m gonna take a shower.” Gob said. The intense bout of crying had given him a headache and he felt like he needed to wash his face. He didn’t even have to ask if he could use Tony’s shower--his house had become Gob’s.  _ Maybe I should ask him about moving in… _ he mused, but decided to save it for another day. Maybe they were already living together and neither of them knew it yet. Gob wasn’t sure if that was possible, but considering how their relationship developed, it wouldn’t be abnormal for them.

“Alright. Can I join you?” when Gob looked up at Tony, he saw a familiar glint in his eyes.

“Are you asking for shower sex after I just cried in your arms?” he asked, but despite his sarcastic tone he couldn’t keep the trademark half-smile off his face.

“Hey, you took it that way,” Tony replied, his non-committal response not fooling Gob at all.

Gob sat up suddenly. “Well, what are you waiting for, then?” he asked, and they practically ran to the shower. Tony smiled, realizing that Gob was going to be okay. They were going to be okay.

In the shower, the two of them had a raucous good time.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope i didn't portray the bluths as too mean, but y'all...they treat gob like garbage and i'm upset about it. 
> 
> thank you all so much for reading, as always comments are my favorite thing ever!! and if you ever wanna talk about blunder or send me prompts (please) my tumblr is followersoftheapocolypse! thank you again!! xoxo


End file.
